Standing in Line

My dad came home early today, so I could run a few errands without having to drag the boys out in the cold.  Earlier in the day when I’d taken the dog out, I was shocked at how it was quite literally freezing outside.  Thankful for his help and a quiet hour by myself, I set out to grab a couple of things at the store and make a stop by the post office.

It was 3:30 when I walked in to what seemed a prematurely long line.  Five days before Christmas, I would have expected the length, but nineteen days out, I was surprised to see the line snaking back and forth all the way to the front door.  Ordinarily, I would have run through the automated machine or just come back another time, but I’d put off mailing a Christmas package to my husband long enough.  Mail can take anywhere between ten days and a month to make it to him when he is deployed.

Begrudgingly, I asked the lady behind me to save my place while I grabbed a flat rate box to put my stack of “goodies from home” in.  In the few seconds it took me to grab a box and get back in line, the line lengthened by ten people.  I thought to myself how grateful I was to not have the boys with me.  That time of day, late afternoon, is when we typically have much-needed mommy-mandated down time because otherwise, either one of them is capable of self-destructing.  It’s never pretty when it happens in public.

I looked around to the front of the line to see if it was moving and realized there was a woman with a giant rolling bin of boxes at the front.  Three different postal workers were working on getting her checked out.  I mumbled something hateful under my breath and checked my watch.

The woman behind me had three children, a boy bundled from head-to-toe and carrying a plastic hanger from Walmart, a girl bundled into a stroller and snoozing peacefully, and a newborn bundled into a carrier.  The mom was red-faced and frazzled, her hair pulled up in a loose ponytail, her post-pregnancy belly still very prominent.  I found myself wanting to help her--carry the baby, entertain the four-year-old, build her a pile of blankets on the floor to take a nap.  Something.

Behind her was an older woman in a wheelchair.  She smelled of cigarettes and wore clothes too big for her small frame, a man’s stocking cap and puffy, kelly green mittens.  The man who dropped her off stood just outside the door, smoking a cigarette while snow flurried around him.

As I filled out the customs form, I overheard the conversation behind me.

“How old are they?” the old woman asked.

With an indecipherable accent, the woman answered, “He’s four, and she’s eighteen months.”  Lifting the blanket on the carrier to reveal a tiny pink hat, she continued, “This one’s just three weeks.”

The old woman laughed as if to herself, her eyes wide, “You’ve got your hands full.”

About that time, the little boy wandered over to a display of stationary and started tapping the wall quietly with his hanger.  His mom explained to all of us, “He’s a pirate today.  That’s his sword.”

I smiled to let her know I understood completely.  Pirates, superheroes--we’ve all been there.

I’d moved ten feet in as many minutes.  The woman with the giant rolling bin of boxes was still taking up the majority of the manpower behind the counter.  The remaining worker seemed to be in no hurry.  Several people walked in and turned right around to leave.  I contemplated cutting my losses and heading to the store before I had to pick my mom up from work.  But then, I thought about my husband having nothing to open on Christmas.  It’s not like anything in the package was all that special, but this is our fourth deployment.  I’ve come to learn that deployments have a way of making the little things matter so much more.  I would wait.

The line started moving more quickly, as several people rolled their eyes and mumbled things like, “Not worth my time...” and “I’ll come back later...” as they headed out the door.  I listened to the continuing conversation behind me.  The mom was from Sweden.  She had visited Florida as a child and jumped at the chance to move to the U. S. for college, where she met her husband.  His job had moved them to Oklahoma three years ago.  I listened carefully, while trying to not appear to be eavesdropping, as she described the cold as a blessing--how she missed home in Sweden so much when they had lived in Florida, a place without winter.  The older lady in the wheelchair nodded in agreement.  She had lived in Florida for two years but moved back to Oklahoma with her husband twenty years ago.  She threw a thumb toward the door to point out the man outside.  I wondered if he was still on the same cigarette, or if he was chain-smoking.

I reached the front and took my place next to the woman with the rolling bin.  She was smallish with a bobbed haircut and nice clothes, and I noticed her eye make-up was smeared.  For the first time, I was able to glance into the rolling bin at the stacks and stacks of boxes.  Each box was uniform in size--flat rate boxes like mine.  I read the side of one that was marked “4 of 25.”  As the postal worker checked my customs form and stamped it appropriately, I took it upon myself to read the name of the addressee.  All of these boxes, every single one of them, were marked to a “Chad.”  The address was an APO/AE, similar to the address on mine.  My eyes darted from box to box.  Twenty-five boxes to a deployed service member.  Chad.

The woman saw me staring at her mail and then noticed the copy of the completed customs form in my hand.  She smiled, and her eyes filled with tears.  “It’s my son.  He’s in Afghanistan.”

I nodded, “My husband.  He’s gone, too.”

I kept nodding.  I didn’t know what else to do to keep from crying.  She started talking hurriedly, wiping tears from her face, as she pulled out a picture of a child.  I do mean a child.  He was wearing Army fatigues and standing rigidly without a smile, but he was a child.

I kept nodding, and the moment was interrupted when the little girl who had been sleeping woke up and began to cry.  Her brother was not helping things as he started poking her with his hanger.  The older woman patted her lap and said loudly, “Oh, honey, hand me one of those babies.”

I stepped forward and took the carrier, while the mom said to the little boy in a hushed but firm voice, “Do not poke your sister, or I will take your sword away.”

The little girl continued to cry, her wails swelling enough to get the attention of everyone in the room.  Her mother worked to get the seatbelt unfastened, while the woman with all the packages knelt down next to the little boy and asked him his name.  Timidly, he answered her, his hanger sword limp at his side, “John.  I’m a pirate.”

The mom had calmed the little girl down, and the murmur of people talking to one another in line or on their phones resumed.  The moment was just that.  Nothing more.

The mom motioned for me to hand the carrier back to her, and I did and then asked, “Can I do anything to help you?”

“Oh, no.  We’re fine thanks,” she said automatically and then added, “Actually, would you mind grabbing our packages and taking them to the counter?  And maybe scoot the stroller, too?”

I did what she asked, as the woman with all the packages helped the woman in the wheelchair move forward without knocking into anything.  As they moved to the counter, the old woman removed her mittens and grabbed the mom’s jacket.  Quietly, she told her, “I lost my only child thirty-one years ago.  You never get over it.”

And then, we all did the only thing we could have done.  The mom with the three young children, the mom with the grown child a million miles away, the mom in the wheelchair, and me.  We cried.  Right there in the lobby of the post office.  We stared at each other and cried.

I caught as many tears as I could with the edge of my sleeve and started walking toward the exit.  Then, without being able to control it, I turned and said, “You have a Merry Christmas.”

The wind took my breath away as I moved outside, and as I passed the smoking man, he nodded hello.  I returned the nod and rushed to my car, to the warmth and comfort of a quiet place, and finished crying.  I couldn’t get home fast enough.  We had dinner to eat, baths to take, books to read.  And phone calls from Daddy to wait on.

Keep X in Xmas! Wait...That's Not Right...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! With the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you, “Be of good cheer, and get your hands off my Xbox, or I will pepper spray you!”  Seriously, people.

Christmas is 23 days away, and I don’t think I’ve ever had more trouble trying to muster some Christmas spirit.  I want to, but I’ve got a lot of static happening in my head due to the things I’m seeing around me.  Reading stories about pepper-spraying shoppers is, for obvious reasons, disheartening, but there’s something else I want to address--something that bothered me a little bit at first and has now begun to consume my thoughts.

We’ve all seen things like this on shop windows and church signs and in our Facebook feeds in the last couple of weeks:

People have sent me email forwards with awful songs about keeping Christ in Christmas--one of which actually revolves around the idea that if a store doesn’t have “Merry Christmas” on their sign instead of “Happy Holidays,” we shouldn’t shop at that store.

I am a Christian.  I celebrate Christmas.  And I certainly understand the sentiment behind statements like “Jesus is the reason for the season.”  HOWEVER, and that is a big however, I am troubled by the spirit behind some of the keep Christ in Christmas fervor.

First let’s address the whole Xmas issue.  Some scholars point to the use of X in place of Christ as derivative of “chi,” the first letter of Christ in Greek.  There isn’t complete agreement on that, but it’s a nice thought either way.  What we do know for sure is that Xmas was definitely appearing around the time that Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press.  Somewhere around the year 1440.  1440.  You got that?  Almost 600 years ago.  Why?  Because it’s easier to place one letter in type than six, and arguably “X” was chosen because it was the first letter of the Greek form of Christ.

So, all of this hubbub (that’s the nicest word I can think to use here) about the “war on Christmas” is hogwash (do I sound grinchy enough?).  Xmas is NOT a new phenomenon, despite what some people want us to think.  It is not a marketing ploy by the PC police to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth or out of America at the very least.  In fact, it doesn’t even do anything to the meaning of Christmas.  Do you still know what someone means when they write/type Merry Xmas?  Then, the meaning isn’t gone.

For God’s sake, the same people who are in a huff over Xmas feel completely fine with updating their FB status to something along the lines of “I hope u all can come by r house l8r tn 4 B’s party!”  Abbreviations, people.

While I understand that some Christians feel as if their civil rights are being affected by our pluralistic society, that is not what is happening with Xmas.

So, let’s address this crazy anger that people seem to have over the substitution of “Happy Holidays” over “Merry Christmas.”  I was going to write a section about this, but then my friend Sarah posted THIS on Facebook.  Please read it.  I couldn’t have said it better.

So, Christmas or Xmas?  Whatever.  Happy holidays or Merry Christmas?  Whatever.

I believe in the redemptive power of God’s love.  In banding together in hard times.  I believe in simplicity.  And new beginnings.  I believe in all of these things that are represented by the Christ child’s entrance into the world.  And you know what else I believe?  I believe what Christ said later in his life.  Christ taught that God’s love is boundless and that his grace is sufficient for all people.  EVERYONE.  

So, when Xians start getting angry about someone stealing their holiday, I want to scream, “IT’S NOT YOUR HOLIDAY!  IT’S FOR EVERYONE!  DIDN’T YOU HEAR WHAT JESUS SAID?”

Minimizing our faith to arguments over semantics serves no one and is, in fact, completely devoid of God’s spirit and love.  No one is going to be drawn to God when his people argue about things that Don’t.  Matter.  At.  All.

So, think on that.  Has someone really stolen your Christmas?  Or are YOU the one letting Christmas become something it wasn’t intended to be?

Merry Xmas and happy holidays to all my friends, Xian and non-Xian alike.

(P. S. Last Christmas, I wrote a couple of posts people seemed to enjoy. You can read them HERE and HERE.)

I Don't Know How to Title This Post

Earlier this year, an off-duty police officer from Oklahoma City was watching a basketball game at a local sports bar with some family and friends.  The employees at the bar asked him to intervene when some other customers got out of hand.  When all was said and done, the drunk customers beat the off-duty officer to the point that he was paralyzed.

The tragedy of this situation sent ripples of outrage across the state of OK.  The local news stations reported on the story obsessively for a couple of weeks.  Benefit concerts and other events were organized all over the city to raise money and show support for a fallen hero.  The community truly came together to take care of one of its own in a moment of tragedy for the officer and his family.

I happened to be in town about a month after the incident, and people were still talking about it--how they had given money to a fund for his children, how they’d attended an event to help pay for his medical bills, how sad and maddening it was that such a great person had had his life forever changed by the actions of some stupid individuals.

Even though I’ve never met the officer or his family, I felt the collective rage--I thought about my best friend’s husband and my cousin--both police officers who put themselves in danger’s way to keep their communities safer.  I thought about what life would have been like if my husband was injured in a way that did not allow him to provide for our family any longer--the physicality of coming back from the injury, the psychological impact it would have on all of us.

I first heard about the Penn State scandal like I hear about most things--on Facebook.  Immediately, I started googling “Jerry Sandusky” and “Mike McQueary” as I saw their names pop up.  (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this.)

As I read article after article, I started to tremble.  At one point, I read a segment of the legal documents that described what was witnessed--Sandusky engaging in anal intercourse with a child who appeared to be around ten years of age--and I thought I was going to vomit.  I had to stop reading, not because I wanted to avoid it but because I didn’t want to get sick.

As more of the story started coming out in the press, the rage continued to build.  I had a hard time sleeping last night.

This morning, I just knew I would wake up to a news feed full of comments about the heinous reports--the hell that these victims had experienced.  And instead, I saw things that made me want to vomit and then strangle some people.

On behalf of the children who were victimized by Jerry Sandusky, let me address a few things.

1. If you are more concerned about Joe Paterno being fired than the fact that multiple children over the last God-knows-how-many years were sexually abused by this monster, you are an asshole and you need to take a moment to think about what exactly is making your brain malfunction.
2. If you “don’t want to be too hard on this McQueary guy” (direct quotation from FB), you are an asshole, and you need to take a moment to think about what exactly is making your brain malfunction.
3. If you have had a thought anywhere along the lines of “I wonder what this means for Penn State,” you are an asshole, and you need to take a moment to think about what exactly is making your brain malfunction.

Let me address point #1.  Joe Paterno is and always will be one of the best coaches in NCAA football.  His record, his rapport with the media and his players, his reputation as a winner has not changed.  However, this talk about how unfortunate it is that he is going out on such a sour note is absurd.  A sour note?  Really?  No.  A sour note would be if we found out he had embezzled money from the program.  That would leave a sour taste in my mouth.  You will not convince me--not ever--that he was completely unaware of what was happening.  The reports tell us that the athletic director and campus police were aware.  I just don’t believe that he didn’t know.  I understand why some people say this is not related to his coaching (I believe he should be dealt with in a criminal court just like everyone else who had knowledge of this), but I absolutely think Penn State is right in firing him.  Why would they want to be associated with him? In reality, though, in light of the big picture here, I just don’t care.  I don’t care what Joe Paterno does with his life.  His being fired is just a distraction from the real issue at hand.

Secondly, let’s talk about Mike McQueary, this guy who is making press for being the one who definitively witnessed the anal rape of a child and did nothing about it.  Yes, he supposedly told his dad and eventually told school authorities, but then nothing happened.  (It has been reported that this grad assistant turned current assistant coach will be on the sidelines in this weekend’s game against Nebraska.  Chew on that for a little while.)  No one did anything.  I’ve seen people say things on FB like, “he was just a kid...he didn’t know what to do...”  NO HE WASN’T!  He was a grown ass 28-year-old man whose scruples completely failed him.  You know who was a kid?  The 10-year-old being anally raped in the shower.

Let’s look at a different scenario.  If you were walking through a public space, say a mall parking lot, and you saw a man beating a woman in the face until blood was dripping on the ground, what would you do?  Depending on the size of the attacker, I would possibly intervene physically--NATURAL human instinct is to stop something like that.  At the very least, I would get out my cell phone and call 911.  If there were other people around, I would draw attention to the situation--scream, jump up and down, yell fire, whatever it took to get other people involved.  You know what I would never do?  Worry about someone finding out or the “proper way to handle something like this” (another sentiment that is floating around.)

So, here we have one grown man anally raping a child and another grown man witnessing it, and his first reaction wasn’t to stop it?  WHY THE HELL NOT?

So, he passed the buck to university officials--campus police and people in the athletic department, none of which took action in any form.  How do those people sleep at night?  I would love to sit down with these people face-to-face and ask them if they have nightmares.  Because I hope they do.  I hope they are tormented with the guilt they should feel over their non-action.  I want to know why.  Why didn’t they do something?  Were they concerned about the reputation of the school?  The reputation of the team?  Their reputations?  Losing their jobs?  What exactly was the thing that was such a big issue that it outweighed saving children from being abused?

That brings me to the third point.  Institutions survive scandal all the time.  My husband was a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy during a highly publicized rape scandal.  Applications and enrollment at the university were not affected.  You would be hard pressed to find someone who has written off the Air Force or the university because of the stupid actions of a few individuals.  Or how about the Catholic church?  Hundreds of thousands of people attend mass weekly despite the fact that that institution is undergoing on-going scandals with priests.  They do not blame the entire institution for the actions of individuals.  

In the case with Penn State, there are thousands of people who couldn’t have told you their mascot was the Nittany Lions, and once Lindsay Lohan does something stupid, they’ll forget this story every existed.  Others who follow college football will look back at this chapter of their history disgustedly, but I doubt the institution of Penn State is going to be affected in a major way because most people have the ability to decipher where blame should be placed.

First and foremost, the blame is on Jerry Sandusky.  He is the demon who hurt children.  He and all the men (and women) out there committing these crimes deserve nothing short of death.  (I’m not looking for a debate about the death penalty.  You won’t change my mind about this.)  The vindictive part of me thinks they should be released without protection in high-security prisons among the most dangerous, mentally ill prisoners.  I know people will argue that it is God’s place to judge everyone, but I don’t think people who hurt children are good enough for Hell.

All of the people who knew what was going on in some way or another need to be held accountable.  What is wrong with us?  What is wrong with us when we look the other way in a situation that is completely unambiguous?  There should never--not ever--be a question in our minds whether it is our job to protect people who can’t protect themselves.  Never.

If you were to ask any resident of OKC about the paralyzed officer and the men who beat him, you would not get an apathetic response.  You most certainly would not hear someone joke about it.  And yet, this is what I am seeing.

I’m not saying I’m the only one expressing rage about this.  In fact, many people are posting things about how they just don’t have words.  One friend did say he was appalled that more people seem upset about Joe Paterno’s firing than the anal rape of a ten-year-old boy.  We are collectively stunned, immobilized, debilitated.

This blog is generally light-hearted, somewhat trivial, and always personal.  I thought a lot about whether or not I wanted to put something like this on here for everyone to read.  It’s not a funny story about my life as a military wife.  It isn’t a book recommendation or review of an album I’ve been listening to.  It isn’t anecdotal evidence of my children’s perfection.

But you know what it is?  Personal.  I take this very personally.  First as the mother of two young boys, but even more as a HUMAN BEING.  Other human beings have been irreparably damaged through sexual abuse.  It’s not just another news story.  It’s not something to joke about.  It is something that should rock us to the core--each and every one of us.  This should be keeping us up at night.  We should be angry.  We should stay angry--not the kind of angry that eats us up, but the kind that calls us to act.  We should be righteously indignant.

This did not just happen to dozens of young boys in some other place.  

It happened to our children.  

It happened to us.  

We can not disconnect from this pain to the point that we forget.

It’s that kind of disconnect that allowed children--flesh and blood--to fall into the crack created by self-interest and cowardice.

It’s not okay.  Not okay.

I want to believe we are better than this.

Listen to This. Right Now. No, Really. Right Now.

I can’t remember how I originally heard about David Ramirez, but ever since I did, he’s been on obsessive repeat on my iPod.  My friend, Derrick, texted me a month or so ago and told me David would be playing at a coffee shop in OKC while I was home.  I was like--stop the presses, it’s a coffee date!

Derrick is lame and texted me two days before the show that he wasn’t going to be able to drive down from Tulsa for the show, but I was undeterred.  I mean, if there’s a place you can go by yourself and not look weird it’s a coffee shop, right?  Luckily, my childhood bestie, Listina, agreed to meet me, so I didn’t have to spend the night apologizing with my eyes to everyone in the coffee shop for taking up a two-seat table with my butt and a book.

So, you know when you listen to someone obsessively and then you hear them live, and you’re like WTF?  Well, this was not like that at all.  This was the opposite of that.  I kind of wanted to go up to him afterward and say, “I have been stalkerishly obsessed with you and your music for the last month.  I am completely in love with your words and am considering being your surrogate if you ever have the need.”  

So, here’s the scene.  There were approximately 23 people in the audience (which might more accurately be described as a congregation in this instance, as the whole evening was an intimate spiritual experience) including the baristas and a couple of people who actually wandered in for coffee.  I was like, “HOW IS THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE OKLAHOMA CITY METROPLEX NOT BEATING DOWN THE DOOR FOR THE CHANCE TO HEAR EVEN ONE SONG FROM THIS GUY?”  He’s that good.

Before the show started, we took a stalker picture with him, and he was totally nice to me despite the fact that I think I interrupted his pre-show meditation or something.

After the show, we had a short conversation about what a fantastic lyricist he is.  I may have said something about how I don’t understand how bands like Give Me My Nickelback can play shitmusic and make money and sell out stadiums, while someone like David Ramirez sings gut-pounding lyrics while strumming a guitar strung with heartstrings to a room of co-eds sipping mochas (and one 75-year-old woman whom I think was doing a crossword puzzle the entire time).  I can’t be sure because the whole conversation was a bit surreal for me, but I’m almost certain I left out the part about wanting to be his surrogate.

So, here’s the deal.  Please do whatever you can right now.  Like right this minute.  Don’t even finish reading my blog.  Go to his website and download his free live album, check out his tour schedule to see if you can go to one of his shows, and then go buy the rest of his stuff on Itunes.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.  He’s the real deal.

And for those of you who can’t be trusted to follow the above directions, here’s a taste of what he does:

Also, if for some reason someone from David Ramirez’s camp runs across this post, can you please tell me how I can get my hands (or ears) on the song he played Thursday night in OKC about heaven?  I was like...I don’t know this song, and then he said it was new.  So effing beautiful.

Good luck, Dave.  I’m sure this post is going to make you so famous that you’ll be questioning if the fame is all really worth it while you sleep on your piles of money.

A Story about an Airline That Doesn't Make You Want to Pull Your Hair Out

When I’m talking to my friend, Patrick, about my blog, he always interrupts me and says, “Oh, you mean your mommy blog,” which makes me bristle because I’m like--it’s not a freaking mommy blog, but then I look back through it, and I’m like oh.  It is kind of a mommy blog.  Whatever, Patrick.  So, here’s a mommy post just for you.

The majority of flying I’ve done since I had children has involved me+the kids by myself due to the nature of my husband’s job.  It’s really not as stressful as some people might think.  Flying with infants=popping out the boob.  Flying with toddlers=popping out the goldfish crackers.  Flying with preschoolers=popping out the Color Wonder coloring books and markers.  After that, they take care of their own popping.  See?  Easy.

In reality, I’ve had good flights and bad, and the level of goodness or badness can basically be measured on three scales:

1. The number of times I had to clean up barf or poop--4 points possible.
2. The number of times the flight was delayed/changed/cancelled--3 points possible.
3. The number of times I thanked strangers for their help (or cursed them for their non-help)--3 points possible.

Last week I flew home to OK, and I only had one kid and a dog because my parents were nice enough to take Ben home with them when they flew back from visiting us in WA.  Traveling with Will is basically like traveling with a tiny adult.  He snacks a little, works his crossword puzzles, and occasionally talks about politics.

When we arrived at the airport, I had to check two bags (clothes for three people during an OK winter for two months does not allow carrying on).  Plus, one of my carry-ons was taken up by our eight-pound dog, Bokonon.  It was my first time to fly on Frontier, so I was pleasantly surprised that they only charge $20/bag to check.  Then--get this.  The lady was like, “Do you want me to go ahead and check your carry-ons through to OKC?”  I am super cheap, so I was just planning on making Will, already laden with his backpack full of snacks and books, drag one of them through the Seattle and Denver airports while I dragged the other and carried the dog, and then we would check them plane-side as usual.  I didn’t need to have them with me--I’m just cheap.  Then Ms. Frontier said the magic words: there’s no fee.

So, I was like, what?  I don’t have to worry about dragging two bags through two airports and getting arrested for failing to obey child labor laws?  Fantastic!

We checked those straight through and were on our way to the gate with just a kid’s backpack and a tiny dog.  I felt like one of those Paris Hilton idiots the whole time, but it was WAY cheaper to keep him in the cabin than it was to check him.  Plus, I worried we might end up with a Bokonon popsicle when we arrived in OKC if he had to travel with the luggage, and the children might have been upset by that.

So, we got on the flight, and with the swipe of my card, Will watched Cars 2 the whole way there, while I read a book, and we both enjoyed our hot, fresh from the oven (FREE!) chocolate chip cookies.  When we arrived in Denver, we found out our flight had been delayed, and the flight/gate attendants were over-the-top accommodating in a way that made me feel like I was on candid camera.  Because of the delay, we got to watch movies on the second flight without paying for them, and of course, there were more free chocolate chip cookies.

So, if I was going to rate this flight, it gets a 9/10, and the only reason it got a 9 was because we did get delayed a bit, which allowed us enough time to eat dinner at the airport, which is my least favorite thing to do in the world.  Oh, what should I choose?  McDonald’s?  Pizza Hut?  Or Chinese food that’s going to revisit me right about the time I’m boarding my flight?  Losing all around.

All of that said, I feel like there have been so many headlines recently about people being mistreated by airlines because they were too fat or too gay or too ______, and I thought I’d put it out in the universe that we had an excellent experience with Frontier Airlines, and I will fly with them every time I have the chance!

Overall, we had a slight delay, but the people were all extremely helpful, and there was no barf or poop (even with the Chinese food!)--which is all I can really ask for from a traveling experience.  Thanks, Frontier!  Feel free to award free tickets for the positive publicity.

The Five Steps of Deployment

Halloween is just around the corner, and it’s kind of a big deal in our house.  For a recap, you can read THIS.  

Earlier this week, my husband left town for a two-month Air Force-sponsored trip to the southwest Asia, so he won’t be joining in the festivities, but that will not stop us!  No, no.  In fact, we will be in OK for Halloween with family and friends, and I intend on stretching out the holiday as long as possible.  I am attending adult parties both Thursday and Friday night, a family party Saturday night, a neighborhood association gathering Sunday night, and then, of course, we will trick or treat on Monday since that’s when the actual holiday occurs.

I figure if we are all fratched out on sugar highs, we won’t even notice that we still have sixty days until Daddy comes home.  Let’s be real--I’ll throw a pack of Smarties and a Tootsie Pop at each of the boys, send them to bed, and then spend each night cuddled up with the Kit-Kats and Reese’s peanut butter cups while I watch late night reruns of Friends on TBS.  When the madness is over and all that is left in the pillow case are those weird peanut butter taffies and gross jawbreakers, I will throw away the candy waste and wake up the next morning with resolve to make the best of the next two months, and step one of deployment survival will be complete.

I should really start this survival guide by saying, this will be the shortest deployment we’ve experienced yet, so I feel a little like I’m cheating and acting like this is a bigger deal than it is.  In our little corner of the Air Force, deployments are typically four months long.  For clarification purposes, a deployment is an instance where he leaves and stages out of another country to support war efforts.  This should not be confused with “trips”--which can last anywhere from one week to one month; “temporary duty”--which can last any length of time, but usually involves training somewhere in the United States with more flexibility/possibility of seeing each other; or “remote assignment”--which would take him somewhere most likely for a year to a place where our family is not invited.

So, a deployment for us is usually four months, and our spouses go more frequently, as opposed to some of my friends’ spouses who go for longer but less frequently.  Deployment schedules vary drastically from branch to branch (and more specifically from air frame to air frame in our world), but the steps of deployment survival seem to be consistent across the board.

I have already detailed Step 1 above, but let’s give it a name:

EXCESS.  This stage involves acting in a way that is contrary to typical behavior and almost always involves too much of a good thing.  Even the most disciplined spouse may find herself looking for her dignity at the bottom of a bag of snack-sized Twix.  (I have several male friends whose wives are the active duty members, and I in no way mean to exclude them, but in reality, most spouses-at-home are women, so for the purpose of continuity, I will be using feminine pronouns from this point forward.) Other spouses (around the time the first tax-free check comes through) may experience sudden budget-blindness and justify the purchase of a new handbag.  Still others may wake up at a resort in St. Bart’s, surrounded by friends, with the fuzzy memory of how a last-minute girls trip happened so quickly.  (Thanks, LivingSocial!)  However this stage plays out, it’s important for us all to go through it because without living excessively and irresponsibly for a bit, we would never find the motivation to move on to stage 2:

GROWTH.  During the growth period, your average military spouse (to be referred to as AMS from this point forward) snaps out of her delusional thinking.  Clearly, no one really wants to gain three pounds a week in chocolate.  Expensive handbags are fantastic (until one of the kids decides to empty the contents of his cereal bowl in one of the inner pockets), and St. Bart’s can only last so long before the children start to wonder where their mother went.  So, AMS digs her heels in and formulates a plan.  It’s during this stage that the Christmas decorations get reorganized--who cares that it’s July?  It needed to be done!  AMS might take up a new hobby--cross-stitching, synchronized swimming, or archery.  She spends her evenings (that were spent emptying the DVR reserves during the Excess stage) sewing new curtains for the sunroom, writing a novel, and planning out a detailed list of activities for the kids including educational trips to the science museum four towns over, a weekend of apple-picking, and one trip to Disneyworld with the grandparents.  The junk drawer consists of a box of toothpicks and a few paperclips, organized nicely into trays.  The kids are on the best sleeping schedule of their lives.  AMS has never been so productive and efficient.  And then that fateful day comes that moves her into stage 3:

ANGER.  All is going smoothly in AMS’s world.  The linen closet is organized by color, and AMS has finished reading for all three of her monthly book clubs.  After sticking the last Tupperware container of pre-made dinners for the week in the freezer, she takes a glance at the calendar for next week.  And there it is.  A giant red circle she drew before her husband left over the day that marks the “halfway point” of the deployment.  Suddenly, AMS is angry.  She is is forlorn.  Her hand instinctively reaches behind the alphabetized spice rack for the Boy Scout caramel corn.  And the Cool Ranch Doritos.  And into the freezer for some Rocky Road ice cream.  IT.  IS.  ON.  Halfway?  HALFWAY!  We still have as much time left as has already passed?  What on God’s green earth am I going to do for the next half?  RE-organize the wrapping paper bins?  Start another blog?  Plan a trip to Great Wolf Lodge?  GOODGODINHEAVEN, this is never going to end.  With the light at the end of the tunnel dimming a bit, AMS settles in with her snacks, sets the DVD player to play When Harry Met Sally on repeat, and wakes up with her hair stuck to the couch by a glob of popcorn and ice cream.  AMS has reached stage 4:

DOLDRUMS.  In Norton Juster’s Phantom Tollbooth, a young boy named Milo finds himself in a place called the Doldrums.  He runs into some inhabitants, the Lethargians, and has this conversation:

"Well, if you can't laugh or think, what can you do?" asked Milo.

"Anything as long as it's nothing, and everything as long as it isn't anything," explained another. "There's lots to do; we have a very busy schedule-

"At 8 o'clock we get up, and then we spend

"From 8 to 9 daydreaming.

"From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap.

"From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay.

"From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap.

"From ll:00 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.

"From l:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter.

"From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap.

"From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.

"From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap.

"From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.

"From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally.

"From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time.

"As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we'd never get nothing done."

"You mean you'd never get anything done," corrected Milo.

"We don't want to get anything done," snapped another angrily; "we want to get nothing done, and we can do that without your help."

"You see," continued another in a more conciliatory tone, "it's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?"

"I might as well," thought Milo; "that's where I seem to be going anyway."

And this is where AMS finds herself.  The laundry can wait.  The dishes pile up.  There are so many other important things to do.  Like watch Lifetime movies about missing children and battered women.  Pinning recipes and quirky quotes to Pinterest.  And Stumbleupon--so many things to stumble upon!  And finding new Tumblrs about Ryan Gosling.  And the cast of Harry Potter.  The Little Caesar’s drive-through crew knows AMS by name--you really can’t beat Hot and Ready pizza when you’ve run out of pre-made lasagna and chicken pot pie.  She was going to make more casseroles, but there was a Twilight Zone marathon on Syfy!  At the end of each day, she checks off her mental to-do list.  Everyone survives without major injuries. Check.  Shower.  Yesterday counts--check! Bought dog food.  Oops--she’ll just give him some leftover pizza crusts until she can find time tomorrow to get out.  It is a haze of nothingness that lasts until she gets that phone call--the one from her deployed spouse.  During their fifteen minute phone call, after the voice announcing, “you have one minute and fifty-three seconds,” he tells her they have an estimated date for return.  She yawns, and answers, “Let me know when it’s a little firmer,” and then glances at the calendar. GOODGODINHEAVEN, it’s time for stage 5:

SPRINT.  Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!  That return date is a few short weeks away (maybe even days on a shorter deployment!).  Look at this house!  Who lives here--the cast of Animal House?  The laundry!  The dishes!  That smell!  We definitely have to do something about that smell before Husband gets home!  Luckily, the cleaning supplies are still in their orderly place.  AMS starts making lists for everyone in the house.  You!  Sort the laundry into darks and lights.  You!  Find all the rogue dishes throughout the house and bring them to the sink.  You!  Well, you just keep chewing on that pizza crust, and I promise I will get some food for you later today.  She makes a phone call to Friendwithnochildren asking if she could take them for an afternoon, so she can get a haircut and pedicure.  Husband has been gone for X days--the least she can do is pretend she hasn’t let her feet go the way of the Hobbit in his absence!  There is rushing and running and scrubbing and scouring and baking and freezing and maybe even a little exercising.  (The Doldrums are never easy on the waist.)  And before she knows it, the stacks are put away.  The smell is mostly gone.  The dog has food in his bowl.  And Husband is coming home.

If you look back over the stages, you will notice that if you add the first letter of each word together, you get “Egads!” an exclamation that originated in the late 17th century meaning, “Oh, God!” which is something that comes out of AMS’s mouth a million times during a deployment--for a myriad of reasons.  Wherever you are in the process, hang in there.  There IS light at the end of the tunnel--just put away some of the stacks of laundry, and you’ll be able to see it!